


A Place to Call Your Own

by hhertzof



Category: The Chronicles of Chrestomanci - Diana Wynne Jones
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-23
Updated: 2012-12-23
Packaged: 2017-11-22 02:29:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/604817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hhertzof/pseuds/hhertzof
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Janet's got a brand new life in a magical castle, just like she always wanted, so why does she feel like she's not what they wanted?</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Place to Call Your Own

**Author's Note:**

  * For [errantcomment](https://archiveofourown.org/users/errantcomment/gifts).



> This is set about 3 months after _Charmed Life_ , going by the timeline established in _The Pinhoe Egg_

Afternoons were the worst part of living at Chrestomanci Castle. Julia and Roger had their magic lessons with Michael Saunders, Cat went over to Chrestomanci's workshop for his and Janet, who would have liked a little time to herself, was caught up by Millie or one of the other members of the family and _coddled_. They all felt _so_ guilty for the way she'd been ripped out of her own world by Gwendolen, that they hovered even worse than her own parents had and they looked so disappointed if she refused whatever treats had been planned for her amusement. In turn that made her feel guilty whenever she was less than perfectly happy. So if one of them asked Janet whether she was happy at the castle she always said "yes". She tried on dresses that were too frilly for her tastes, ate cakes with loads of whipped cream, and subdued her usual inclination to speak her mind. Speaking her mind would just have caused people to worry about her for all the wrong reasons.

It worked for a few months, at least on the surface. There were good things about the castle like Cat and Roger and especially Julia. She told herself that was having a magical adventure, like in one of her books, complete with enchanters and dragons, even if most of her days were filled with dull things like learning a whole new history with a whole different set of Kings and Queens and countries. Chrestomanci's dressing gowns grew more outrageous with each one she saw, though nothing could match the chartreuse one with flying purple pigs. The days passed by serenely, one after another and if this was an adventure, it was the boring sort. She hoped it was just the calm before the storm.

The nights were another matter. The bed was comfortable enough but all the little incidents from that day would just run round and round in her head and a knot would form in her stomach. How dense she felt not knowing events even Cat knew; the lacy, pale blue dress that she knew she'd rip or stain the first time she wore it; the mounds of whipped cream that she'd thought would go directly to her waist. Though the last bothered her less when she realised just how much time she spent running around the castle (miles of corridors) and the grounds or into town with the other kids (no cars or buses going that way, unless they could catch a ride with an adult.

Eventually she started stashing a book under her pillow and if she found she couldn't get back to sleep, she read instead. In this way, she finished the books Millie and Julia had given her in a matter of days and found herself slipping into the castle library after bedtime for more. Janet knew that if she asked they would just give her more, but she was tired of being given things that people thought would make her happy and she didn't want them to know how much she'd been reading or, more importantly, how little she'd been sleeping.

She found the next books in the Millie series easily, and then, oh wonder of wonders, she found a set of Angela Brazil school stories in a case marked 12A, which she knew was the designation for her world. She didn't know why Chrestomanci had them, and she would have much preferred the Chalet School but while the Millie books were lovely, she missed school stories set in her own world. Janet grabbed two of them, carefully arranging the case so that it was less obvious that they were gone and ignoring the knot in her stomach and the lump in her throat that came more frequently now. She didn't dare ask if she could take them - they'd think she was homesick and coddle her all the more and that was the last thing she wanted.

And so the nights went. She'd read until she'd finally fall asleep, the book slipping out of her grasp, and wake, feeling heavy and out of sorts when Lydia, the new maid, came knocking at the door. Janet could see the dark marks forming under her eyes when she looked in the mirror and she was finding it more and more difficult not to snap at Millie or Miss Rosalie when they announced the day's treat.

On a cold, bright Thursday a few weeks before Christmas, Millie decided that they should do a bit of decorating for the holidays. As usual, Janet had put on her brightest smile and agreed that it would be fun, but it didn't take her fifteen minutes of watching Millie fumble to realise that Millie usually did this with magic or had the servants do it with magic. It wasn't just that they felt guilty; they were trying to make it up to her that she didn't have any magic. Somehow this just made things worse.

Millie was called out of the room by Miss Rosalie, and for a moment Janet just stood there. Then, daringly, she followed Millie out the door. She told herself she wanted to know how long Millie would be, but she stopped dead when she heard Chrestomanci.

"How is she doing? I don't think she's sleeping well."

"Janet says she's not used to the rich foods we eat," Millie's quiet reply came clearly through the door even though it was only open a crack. "She seems content enough here. Not homesick if that's what you're worried about. She's always thrilled to do whatever we suggest."

Janet pressed herself against the wall, and edged closer to the door.

"Good, good. I was worried that it might suddenly hit her, being so close to Christmas or that she might be jealous of the others for having magic when she couldn't do the slightest hint of a spell when we tested her, but as long as she's happy here we don't need to worry."

She should have been happy that they didn't suspect how wrong everything felt. Wasn't that what she wanted? But it was like going back home and realising that her parents hadn't even noticed she was gone. "Chrestomanci isn't a _noticing_ sort of person," she muttered to herself. Look at what had happened with Cat. You'd think someone would have seen that he was miserable and that his awful sister had him wrapped around her little finger.

Suddenly all she wanted was to get out of the castle. Janet glanced at the closed door but they were still talking about her and would never notice. There was a door to the grounds at the end of the hall and before she thought it through, she was dashing out the door. Anger and hurt carried her as far as a group of hedges where she stumbled and ripped her dress. She shoved her way into the centre of the hedges, shredding her delicate lace dress, where at least she was out of the wind. She rolled into a ball and burst into tears.

She never knew, afterwards how long she cried, but at last, exhausted, Janet fell into a deep sleep and never heard the calls of the castle folk searching for her.

"Janet! Janet, there you are."

Janet opened her eyes to the sight of Chrestomanci in a magnificent lime green dressing gown with hippos in pink tutus pirouetting across it. She blinked, brushing away some of the needles and tears with her hand. "Wha-," she said groggily. Her first thought was that not even flying purple pigs could measure up to that. Her second thought was to wonder if she were still dreaming. That dressing gown couldn't be real.

"Got you." Another's voice - a woman's voice announced as the hedge suddenly transformed into a silver cage. "I knew you'd come a-searching for the girl. I thought it would be the little boy but he proved too strong for me. This one was full of sorrows she couldn't share, always lonely in a crowd. All I had to do was lure her away from the castle and your protections and you would follow. Now you're stuck and I am free to roam." There was a whooshing sound and the woman was gone.

Janet sat up unsteadily, slowly taking in things that weren't that outrageous dressing gown. "Who was that? It sounded like Lydia." She felt like she did when she was ill and mum dosed her with stuff to make her sleep.

"The witch we've been trying to trap for the past fortnight, I think. I'm sorry. I had no idea she'd come after you." Chrestomanci reached up to touch the cage. "It is indeed silver. I doubt an illusion could have hit it from me, but perhaps she managed a transformation spell. I don't suppose you have any thoughts about how we could get out of here."

"Would Cat come when we call him, like you do?" Janet asked, studying the cage.

"No, that spell is tied to the title of Chrestomanci." He studied her. "Have you really been that miserable here? Why didn't you say?"

"I wasn't. Not really," Janet protested, the tears threatening to return even though she was telling the truth. "Not because I was here. I like it here, mostly. I just miss things sometimes. Stupid things, like jeans, and my favourite books, and not knowing how the Doctor and Leela escaped that last cliffhanger. I wonder how Romilla is getting along with my parents and if they even miss me. And- and I feel like as much as you feel guilty for what Gwendolen did, you got stuck with me too and you're all giving me so much and I'm just a lump." All of this streamed out in a bunch leaving Janet feeling drained, but she rushed onward. "I don't know anything in class, except maybe maths and that was my worst subject. And you don't _notice_. You didn't notice that Cat was miserable and being used and you didn't notice that maybe I didn't need to be hovered over every minute of every day. I'm not evil and I'm not unhappy here, I just need some space to figure out how I do feel." She looked at Chrestomanci warily. "Sorry I didn't mean for that to sound so- so unhappy, I don't think I am.

He'd closed his eyes. "No. You're right of course. We hovered over you when we thought you were Gwendolen and then when we knew you were you we hovered for different reasons."

Janet found herself suddenly feeling calmer than she had in ages. "I think the witch stirred all my feelings up to make me want to _get away_. So I got confused and everything was running around in my head." She bit her lip. "It's just- it's like boarding school in the books I've read. You go and there are lots of good things- adventures and new people, but you also have to adjust because you miss things you left behind. I doubt you could get a BBC signal here, even if you had a telly, so I sometimes miss my shows, but there are other things to do here. I miss trousers too, but I wouldn't give this up for that either. Does that make any sense?" She was just rambling now.

"More than you think," Chrestomanci said. He sat down beside her and crossed his ankles. Janet suddenly realised he had his pyjamas on underneath.

"How long was I out here?" She asked shakily, as she realised how dark it was.

"We were getting ready for bed before we realised you were gone. Lydia said you weren't feeling well and had gone to bed early. Given those dark circles under your eyes, we believed her" He looked mad at himself. "I don't know how we didn't notice what she was doing right under our noses."

"It's okay." Janet patted his arm. "Let's see about getting ourselves out of here before she causes more mischief. Turn your pockets out."

He obeyed, revealing a handkerchief, three board game pieces, a button and a bit of lint.

Janet tried to hide her disappointment. Usually when one did this in books, one came up with useful things like string and sonic screwdrivers. She dug into her own pockets and produced a handful of coins (the remainder of the previous day's allowance), and her pocket knife. It had been the one thing that she'd grabbed when she had returned home, knowing Romilla would never miss it. "Wait. How pure does the silver have to be to affect you?"

Chrestomanci looked at her thoughtfully. He'd clearly never considered that before. "I don't know. The coins would have been an alloy, but there were other silver things in my pocket."

She opened up her blade and ran it across one of the bars, leaving a mark. "Pure silver is soft for a metal. This might work." She set to work on one of the bars. It was slow going.

"Let me do that for a while. I can touch silver with no problem, I just can't do magic around it," Chrestomanci said, so she handed him the knife.

Her mind was finally starting to clear and she tried to think of what else she knew about silver. A memory of a science demonstration flitted through her mind. It might work but it might also be dangerous. Photography, they had that here. "Chrestomanci, this is a big cage. Can you work magic in here? If you're not touching the silver, I mean?"

"I might be able to do something small," he replied. "But nothing I could do would affect the bars."

"Could you grab something and bring it in here? Something that would fit through the bars." Janet looked at the space available. "I think."

"Maybe. What did you have in mind?"

"Nitric acid." She hoped she'd remembered it right.

Chrestomanci stared at her for a second, then grinned, folded her knife and handed it back to her. Then he frowned. "Reacting with the silver to make silver nitrate? That would be dangerous, but it just might work. Anything I created would just fail to work but there's some in the lab." he tested the wind, then focused, and before Janet knew it she could see liquid dripping slowly down the far side of the cage, so that the wind blew the fumes away from them. "Cover your face with my handkerchief."

janet thought Chrestomanci might be using his magic to increase the wind, as it picked up suddenly. "No, you use that." She handed it to him and grabbed at her ripped dress, ripping it further and producing a piece large enough to tie over her own face. "Once those bars are dissolved, I'm going to jump through them. Don't argue, I'm smaller and less likely to get hurt. After I go, concentrate on dissipating the fumes. Not only are they poisonous, you might inhale some silver. Cat will be able to do something about the trap."

Chrestomanci looked like he was going to argue, but the bars were already weakening enough to bend under their own weight. "I can't stop it to let you out.

Janet tore three more strips off her dress, thankful for the wool petticoats and stockings for once. They'd stood up to her crashing through the hedge and would protect her legs and the dress' long sleeves would do the same for her arms. She just needed to protect her head and hands and she'd run out so abruptly she hadn't even thought about taking a hat.

She took a deep breath, made sure her mask was fastened tightly, closed her eyes tightly and bolted through the opening, using her weight to push the bars down, and then she was through. Janet turned left and left again, counting footsteps and feeling for the corner of the cage. She pressed her arm against the side of the cage and when she reached the opposite side from the hole, she finally dared to open her eyes. "I'll be back." She studied the stars for a moment before dashing out in the direction of the castle.

Janet found Julia first and breathlessly blurted out, "Witch caught your dad and me in a silver cage. Over there." She pointed in the direction she'd come from. "Get Cat and I'll show him."

"How did you get out," Mordecai Roberts asked as he came up behind Julia.

"Silver nitrate. Nitrous Oxide from the lab. Don't touch me, I'm covered in the stuff."

Mordecai gestured. "I've cleaned it off you, but you should see a healer."

"I know - that stuff's nasty. But I need to show someone where Chrestomanci is first," Janet insisted.

"I'll go," Julia said, "Get Cat and have him track this." She tied a knot in her handkerchief and it lit up like the torch Janet had bought for camping, the good bright one.

Janet suddenly wished she'd brought that torch with her too.

It felt like hours passed before Mordecai nodded his agreement. "Go. Janet, come right back."

She nodded and set off at a run, slower this time to allow the less athletic Julia to keep up.

The rest of the night was a blur. Janet ran back, had a long, thorough bath (just in case, Millie said) and was tucked into bed. She didn't even care when Millie found _A Fourth Form Friendship_ tucked under her pillow.

Janet didn't wake till midday and just lay in bed enjoying that feeling one gets when one is getting over an illness and feeling much better but not quite good enough to go to school. She hadn't slept that well since the new maid had started. She finally dressed, a little more appreciative of the petticoats now, and stumbled downstairs just as the lunch gong sounded.

The rest was anticlimactic. Cat, Mordecai and Julia had freed Chrestomanci and made sure there was no lasting damage to either of them from the fumes. Roger spent the entire lunch sulking because he'd slept through the whole thing. Most importantly, Millie and Miss Rosalie had caught Lydia and she'd been stripped of her powers and sent to London for judgement on dragon blood smuggling charges. Everyone was giving Janet a little more room or at least trying to, but it wasn't working very well, since they all wanted to know about the events of the night before. 

Janet and Millie had a long talk in Millie's sitting room after lunch.

"I don't mind doing things sometimes," Janet said, feeling a little self-conscious, "but sometimes I'd like to read and," she couldn't believe she was saying this, "maybe I should be having extra tutoring in history and everything else that's different about this world. You all grew up with it so you don't think about it. I still don't know how magic works, not really - not the spells as much as what witch and warlock signify and what's considered good or bad magic."

Millie smiled at her. "That sounds fair enough. Janet, if it makes you feel any better, I came into this world in a similar way, but the Chrestomanci in those days was much less welcoming and I'd got it in my head that I wanted to go to boarding school."

Janet laughed at that. She knew where Millie's name had come from. "I always thought it was great to read about but that if I ever went I'd loathe it. Too many people telling me what to do and not enough time for myself."

"You're much more sensible than I was back then, but I didn't have as much experience with the world." Millie gave her a one armed hug. "We like having you here."

"Thanks." What did one say to something like that? "There's one more thing." Janet hesitated. "It's a bit silly, but do you think that if I gave him a list, Chrestomanci could get some books from my home world for me for Christmas? Angela Brazil is okay, but she gets sort of samey after a while. They don't have to be the copies I left at home, I just miss my books."

"I think that's a lovely idea," Millie said, "but only if you share."


End file.
